This is a parenting page, about parenting Page. I am a child psychologist and a mother. So I specialize in children, yet I am human, thus I am full of knowledge and yet as full of emotions as any other parent. I decided to write this Parenting Page since it might be informative and funny for others to take an insider look at a child specialist raising her child. I also wanted to create a way to show Page when she grows up, if she chooses to have children, a real-life view of the experience. I hope you enjoy these stories and musings.

 

Who would think something so natural could be so hard? Given that our bodies need sleep to be both physically and mentally healthy, one would think humans would be born with the ability, maybe even the desire, to sleep, from day one. Not so as all parents will attest.

Page was born five weeks premature, and when we brought her home she was only 4.5lbs. (My husband and I privately questioned them allowing us to take such a small little creature home, but assumed they knew more than we did about what to do with a preemie – a fair assumption as we knew nothing.) We were told to wake Page every two hours if she did not wake on her own to feed her. We did this at first, and it was hell. Waking a sleeping baby is very difficult; they don’t wake up, and if you jostle them enough that they must wake up, they are extremely unhappy. I knew studies that showed baby monkeys gained more weight and more rapidly based on the amount of time they were held, that is, of monkeys fed the exact same amount, the ones held more gained more weight. So we quickly started letting Page wake up on her own schedule, but held her incessantly. The reality is she woke up almost every two to three hours anyway, as I guess most newborns do. To ensure she had ample time being held, we started holding her during all daytime sleeping, and only put her in her crib for nighttime sleeping. We also held her at night until she was in a deep sleep before putting her into her crib. While she gained weight like a champ, we created a sleep-monster. Lesson: We create as many problems as we solve as parents.

After a few of months, with Page at a great weight, I really didn’t want to hold her at nap time any more. That was prime time to get stuff done, or to have a little me-time, which was impossible if I was trapped acting as her mattress to sleep on. Likewise, I wanted to speed up the evening routine a little. I tried to illicit the support of Peter and his mother who lived with us from when Page was 3-9 months olds, but to no avail. Page was Peter’s first child and his mother’s first grandchild, so there was no logic, just unbridled love (which sounds like a great thing, but love minus logic is not always useful). At nine months old though, I knew I had to put my foot down, because Peter’s mother was returning to Greece and we needed to hire a nanny. There was no way I was going to explain to a nanny that she had to hold Page every time Page slept throughout the day. As I explained to Peter and his mother, it’s all well and good to live with your own brand of crazy in your own home, but you really can’t expect others who come into your home to be crazy too. I was drawing the line. They tried to convince me the nanny would not think it was crazy to hold a child for every nap, but I held fast and won that battle. We started putting Page into her crib for naps, and that transition was not as difficult as I had feared, because like the evenings we held her until she was fully asleep.

A few months later I started to really want to be able to put Page to bed at night without having to hold her until she was asleep. I was concerned we had not taught her the skill to self-soothe. Now I needed to change the way Page slept, and essentially to teach her to self-soothe. But Peter refused to help. I tried to explain we would rock Page a little, then put her in her bed at night while still awake, and yes she would fuss at first, but she’d get used to it. No go he said; he simply could not leave her in her crib if she cried. Yes, he agreed, in theory we needed to teach her to self-soothe, and as parents we had failed at that so far… but even so, he could not do it. He was more willing to live with his failure than to go through the discomfort of allowing her to cry. After a few weeks of not being able to engage Peter in the process, I realized I needed to ambush him to get this done, so one night when he went to the store at her bedtime, I instituted the change. I rocked Page then put her in her crib while she was still awake. She started to cry and to pull herself up. I said, “I love you sweetie. You lay down and go to sleep.” Then I left the room. My plan was the graduated time frame wherein I would go back in 1 minute, lay her down, then wait 2 minutes, go back in, then wait maybe 4-5 minutes, etc. I wasn’t prepared to let her go more than maybe about 10 minutes crying, but I knew I needed to try something different. I was prepared it could take several days of this for Page to adapt to the new routine.

Page cried for the first minute. After one minute I went back in and said the same message: “I love you sweetie. You lay down and go to sleep.” Then I left again. She fussed again and a couple of minutes later I went in again, same message, left again. At this point Peter had come home. Now I had to teach him the new routine too. He could see and hear Page on the video baby monitor fussing, and a look of panic spread across his face. I explained this was it, I had started the change, and he was not allowed at all to interfere. I explained since I had already put this in motion he was going to make it worse on Page if he went to her now.

We started staring at the baby monitor. Page had stopped fussing, and stopped standing. She was sitting up, just looking around. Clearly she was trying to process what was happening. But she was doing so calmly. However, after several minutes she had not laid down. As sleepiness overtook her, she would sway a bit, which would startle her and she would jerk awake, all still sitting. It occurred to us she did not know to lie down. We started to worry if she fell over in her crib, there was a chance she would bonk her head on the bars depending in which direction she fell. Peter thought we should go explain to her to lie down, but I insisted we not return to the room since she was quiet. She had to figure this out on her own. We watched with rapt attention. We estimated the likelihood she would fall forward and hit her head versus fall to the sides or back, all three of which would not entail a head-bonk. We knew if she fell into the bars she wouldn’t be hurt, but would be really startled. The worry she might do so was torture. We watched as she swayed and jerked awake over and over. We paced and moaned and wrung our hands. Inside I second-guessed myself over and over as to whether I was doing the right thing. I felt exceedingly guilty I had not taught her to self-soothe when she was younger, before she could sit up, so she wouldn’t be going through this. The minutes ticked by so slowly it was as if time had stopped. Then, finally, in exhaustion she toppled over to her side, onto her mattress, no head-bonk. She didn’t even startle awake at falling over, as she was in a deep sleep.

And that was it! The next night I put her in her bed and left, and she lay down and went to sleep! It did not end up taking several days to learn the new routine, but just one night of us finally getting it right for her to get it right too. I am grateful the universe took pity on me and spared me more nights of torture, staring at the monitor, wondering if I knew what the hell I was doing.

Though given she was only about 18 months old at the time, there were years to come of second-guessing myself and wondering if I was ‘getting it right.’

Dr. Tina Lepage is the owner of Lepage Associates Solution-Based Psychological & Psychiatric Services, a group practice with offices in S. Durham/RTP, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. www.lepageassociates.com. You can find her on Twitter at @LepageAssoc or at Facebook.com/LepageAssociates.

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